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I'm a Tom & Jerry fan myself. I own all three of the Spotlight Collections, as well as the Chuck Jones and Gene Deitch collections. They are indeed one of the greatest slapstick duos to hit the screen alongside Laurel & Hardy and Abbot & Costello. As a matter of fact, I've actually written an article on Tom & Jerry in another forum that might strike your fancy...

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I'm a Tom & Jerry fan myself. I own all three of the Spotlight Collections, as well as the Chuck Jones and Gene Deitch collections. They are indeed one of the greatest slapstick duos to hit the screen alongside Laurel & Hardy and Abbot & Costello. As a matter of fact, I've actually written an article on Tom & Jerry in another forum that might strike your fancy...

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Fun Fact: There was another "Tom & Jerry" cartoon duo, before the cat & mouse.

The original Tom & Jerry were humans (one tall & thin, the other short & plump), in cartoons by the Van Beuren studio. When Hanna-Barbera's Tom & Jerry became popular, the old Van Beuren Tom & Jerry were re-named "Dick & Larry" in re-releases, to avoid confusion.

Here's the Van Beuren duo in "Wot a Night". (Warning: contains blackface material. This is one reason why these cartoons aren't seen any more. Another is that they're in black & white.)

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I wouldn't say that they don't show them on TV anymore because they're black and white. I've seen black and white cartoons on Cartoon Network (TCM's sister station) before. It's because of the blackface bits, unless they can be edited out so they can be broadcast, which I'm wholeheartedly against as a film purist.

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Fun Fact: There was another "Tom & Jerry" cartoon duo, before the cat & mouse.

The original Tom & Jerry were humans (one tall & thin, the other short & plump), in cartoons by the Van Beuren studio. When Hanna-Barbera's Tom & Jerry became popular, the old Van Beuren Tom & Jerry were re-named "Dick & Larry" in re-releases, to avoid confusion.

Here's the Van Beuren duo in "Wot a Night". (Warning: contains blackface material. This is one reason why these cartoons aren't seen any more. Another is that they're in black & white.)

Thanks a lot for sharing this link. I thought for a while that if the Tom and Jerry duo were humans, then it would have been totally different. I am glad that they made it as "World's Favorite Cat-and-Mouse duo".

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According to a documentary on one of my Spotlight Collection DVDs, Quimby took things too seriously. The animators, including the directors would pull pranks on one another for inspiration for the cartoons, but when Quimby saw them, he would stop them and say "What are you guys doing? This is MGM. You shouldn't be doing this." He even kept the seven Oscars Hanna and Barbera rightfully won in his office.

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While I have always enjoyed the Tom & Jerry and other MGM cartoons, I think the Warner Brothers cartoons are superior in terms of story, characters and comedy. MGM and Walt Disney often had a more artistic presentation, but for pure slapstick, both visual and verbal, Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies can't be beat. From the fairly primitive cartoons of the thirties, they developed a formula and several characters, like Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. Then, in the early 1940's they created a superstar, Bugs Bunny. While Bugs needed several years to achieve his classic look and speech pattern, right from the start he tangled with his arch nemesis, Elmer Fudd (who underwent his own transformation, during those same years). Though Elmer was his first, Bugs faced many other adversaries through the years: Yosemite Sam, Witch Hazel, Marvin the Martian and the Tasmanian Devil (to name a few). There was also the classic teaming with Daffy Duck, a pairing reminiscent of Hope & Crosby. Warner Bros. had a deep bench, with many other stars besides the "big four." Sylvester & Tweety, Pepe Le Pew, Henery Hawk, The Roadrunner & Wile E. Coyote, Sam the Sheepdog & Ralph the Wolf, and Speedy Gonzales. And my personal favorite, Foghorn Leghorn; a loud mouthed, oversize chicken who crossed swords with Sylvester, Henery the Hawk, the Barnyard Dog, and Miss Prissy, the spinster hen. The character was loosely based on Kenny Delmar's "Senator Claghorn" character from "The Fred Allen Show" on radio. This is another example of a radio character crossing over to the movies (sort of). In all these cartoons, we get seven minutes of concentrated visual & verbal slapstick. The cultural impact and commercial success of these Warner Brothers classics can not be denied.